1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document control apparatus, a document control system, a document control method and a storage medium, more particularly to a document control apparatus, a document control system, a document control method and a storage medium that are preferable for providing accumulation control service by keeping various users' electronic documents.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, companies have been providing document control systems for controlling electronic documents in an office. However, a conventional system generally is a sort of a document control system exclusively used by a user that is established in the user side in order to control documents owned by the user. In addition, since such a system is relatively expensive, although its introduction effects are expected and installation is proceeded to some extent according to necessity in large companies, it has not been introduced in small and medium-sized companies yet. On the other hand, it is an important subject for clarifying responsibilities of a company to store and control documents for a fixed period of time in the company. Thus, a service for storing and controlling documents of companies is now being started as a business.
However, the above-mentioned conventional art has the following problems. When a service for storing and controlling documents of companies is being started as a business as described above, a document control system for keeping documents of other companies with responsibility needs to be established unlike a conventional system that is exclusively operated within an own company. For this purpose, measures from various points of view are required, and here, a mechanism of a basic charge system in implementing a service and subjects particularly concerning storing duration of user documents and charge control are dealt with by the present invention.
The present invention is devised in view of the above-mentioned points, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a document control apparatus, a document control system, a document control method and a storage medium that are capable of providing more certain access control by the unit of document and a system (service) for allowing access in the form of charging additional charge with a fixed grace period, and are made possible to support more flexible and certain than before.